So here is the offending program:
class IsNil a where
isNil :: a -> Bool
instance IsNil [b] where
isNil [] = True
isNil _ = False
f x y = let g = isNil
in (g x, g y)
The monomorphism restriction applies to the binding of "g" since
there is no type signature. Thus it is not legal to derive
"forall a . IsNil a => a -> Bool", but two legal possibilities are
- forall b . [b] -> Bool, and
- a -> Bool (without quantification and with "IsNil a" among the predicates).
These two choices lead to different types for "f":
- forall a b . [a] -> [b] -> (Bool,Bool), and
- forall a . IsNil a => a -> a -> (Bool,Bool)
Interesting.
Every now and then I propagate for replacing the MR by two forms of binding:
pat = expr -- call by NAME binding, fully polymorphic and overloaded
pat := expr -- call by NEED binding, completely monomorphic
The point is to make the programmer aware of when monomorphism applies, so its
consequences are not surprising, and also aware (with an = binding) that there
is a risk of recomputation. It sounds as though Clean has adopted a similar
idea.
With "g = isNil", the type of f becomes
forall a b. (IsNil a, IsNil b) -> a -> b -> (Bool, Bool)
With "g := isNil", it becomes
forall a. IsNil a => a -> a -> (Bool, Bool)
The two incomparable types for f become types of two different programs;
problem solved (in this example at least).
Karl-Filip, would this idea restore the principal type property in general?
John Hughes
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